73: Chapter 73 Azure Eagle

The twenty-eighth day, early morning.

The fog had not yet dispersed.

A layer of grayish-white mist floated through the forest, rising from the layer of decaying leaves, mixed with the sweet, fishy scent of dew and mycelium, flowing slowly along the ground.

The leaves on the canopy were soaked and glistening with mist, and occasionally a drop of dew would fall from a leaf tip, shattering into fragments upon hitting a dead branch; the sound was exceptionally crisp in the quiet forest.

Jiang Yan woke up amidst the aerial roots of an ancient banyan tree.

This banyan tree had lived for who knows how many years; hundreds of aerial roots hung down from its branches and plunged into the soil, forming a natural, dense cage.

He had cleared a small space in the center of the aerial roots, set up a concealment Restriction, and made do for the night.

He spread his palm open.

The two Spirit Stones he had held in his palm last night had already exhausted their Spiritual Qi; their surfaces had turned from a gentle, greenish-white to a dull, dead gray, and they crumbled into powder with a light squeeze.

The dark gold vortex tinged with purple in his Dantian had fully recovered, operating steadily and powerfully.

Putting away the Restriction, he crawled out from the aerial roots, stood on a protruding buttress root under the banyan tree, and first released his Divine Sense to scan the area.

A few small rodent-type Yao Beasts were rustling about under the decaying leaves, foraging for nuts; in the distance, a deer-shaped Yao Beast was lowering its head to drink water by a stream; further away, a heavily armored warthog was using its tusks to root around tree bases for insects.

They were all First Rank, Middle to Low Grade, posing no threat.

He identified his direction and continued walking toward the southeast.

As he moved further forward, the density of the forest began to decrease.

Those ancient tall trees, so thick they required three or four people to encircle them, gradually became sparse, replaced by stretches of open gravel slopes.

The slopes were covered with dwarf shrubs and waist-deep withered grass; among the gravel, one could occasionally see patches of drought-resistant moss, their surfaces covered in a layer of grayish-white lichen.

The sun rose from the eastern ridge, and the sunlight beat directly onto the slope; without the obstruction of the canopy, the gravel was baked until it was scorching hot.

The field of vision had broadened significantly.

But this openness was not good news for Jiang Yan.

The canopy could block sightlines from the sky, but open ground meant he was exposed to any predator that could look down from above.

He quickened his pace. Under the enhancement of the Wind Control Technique, his figure swept silently through the shrubbery.

He pushed his Divine Sense to its limit, specifically strengthening his perception in the direction above his head.

In open mountain areas, the threat from the sky was greater than that from the ground.

This judgment was validated half a stick of incense later.

A sharp eagle cry slashed down from the high sky directly above.

The eagle cry had tremendous penetrating power, like a red-hot iron needle piercing straight from his eardrum into his cranial cavity.

Jiang Yan's Divine Sense had already captured that fierce fluctuation of Spiritual Qi before he even heard the eagle cry.

It was as sharp as a blade, diving vertically from high altitude at an extreme speed, so fast that the trajectory of the Spiritual Qi in his Divine Sense perception was stretched into a straight line.

He did not look up. Looking up was courting death; the moment wasted would be enough for the predator to complete the kill.

He triggered a Wind Control Technique directly under his feet, shifting himself three zhang to the right; his boot soles plowed a shallow trench in the gravel, sending stones scattering in all directions.

A green shadow brushed past the spot where he had just been standing and slammed into the ground.

With a dull boom, the gravel and soil were blasted apart; in the rising dust, a pair of folded giant wings were revealed—the wingspan was nearly three zhang, covered in greenish-gray hard feathers, with the edge of each feather shimmering with a faint metallic luster.

The few Elementary flight feathers at the wingtips were particularly sharp; the moment they grazed the ground, several fist-sized stones were sliced cleanly through, their cross-sections as smooth as a mirror.

Azure Cloud Eagle. A First Rank Peak Yao Beast, a dual-element beast with Metal and Wind attributes.

This type of Yao Beast had almost no natural predators in high mountain areas; relying on its fast diving speed and the armor-piercing power of its eagle claws, it dared to hunt prey several times its own size.

Its weakness was its abdomen—the area not covered by hard feathers had only a thin layer of down, but that layer of down was hidden directly underneath its body, and it was impossible to hit from a normal attack angle.

In the dust, the Azure Cloud Eagle suddenly spread its wings, the wingtips carving several deep cuts into the ground, sending gravel flying to both sides.

It used the force to take flight, its massive wing surface whipping up a gale of flying sand and stones, uprooting several nearby dwarf shrubs.

At a height of ten zhang from the ground, it flipped and turned, its two eagle eyes locking tightly onto the small figure in gray on the ground.

Jiang Yan saw those eagle eyes clearly.

Golden irises, with pupils contracted into tiny, jet-black points the size of a needle tip.

Those were not the eyes of a wild beast—they were the gaze of a pure predator evaluating its prey.

It had already marked him, a human, as its prey and would not give up easily.

The Azure Cloud Eagle circled once in the air.

It was adjusting its attack angle—the first failed strike let it know that this prey could dodge, so the second dive would not be so straightforward.

Jiang Yan did not wait for it to swoop down.

He flipped his right hand, and the repaired First Rank Peak-Grade Flying Sword shot out from his Storage Pouch.

The ten Restriction patterns on the dark gold sword body lit up simultaneously in the sunlight, and the repaired crack along the spine of the sword glowed with a faint purple light as Spiritual Qi was infused into it.

This sword was faster and sharper than the flame gold flying sword; it was currently his strongest single-target Magical Artifact.

The Azure Cloud Eagle had already reacted the moment the Flying Sword was launched.

Its wings suddenly folded, its body flipped half a turn in mid-air, and the Flying Sword brushed past its wingtip, severing two secondary flight feathers.

The greenish-gray feather fragments drifted in the air, shimmering brightly under the sunlight.

But it had underestimated the speed of this Flying Sword.

Jiang Yan's Divine Sense suddenly flicked the trajectory of the Flying Sword upward.

The Flying Sword traced an almost impossible right-angle turn in mid-air, stabbing diagonally from the side and below toward the Azure Cloud Eagle's abdomen—the exact soft spot not covered by hard feathers; if it landed, a single strike could severely damage its internal organs.

The Azure Cloud Eagle let out a sharp screech.

Its claws suddenly kicked downward, a layer of cyan Spiritual Qi shimmering on the two eagle claws, and it actually grabbed the body of the Flying Sword directly.

With a clang of metal on metal, sparks erupted between the eagle claws and the sword body; the ear-piercing sound of friction made Jiang Yan's teeth ache.

The Azure Cloud Eagle's claws were covered with a layer of natural Metal-element Yao power, its hardness comparable to a First Rank Magical Artifact.

The Flying Sword vibrated violently within the eagle claws, the friction between the blade and the claws emitting a shrill screech, but it remained unable to break free.

Jiang Yan frowned slightly.

The First Rank Peak Azure Cloud Eagle's reaction speed was faster than he had anticipated, and the hardness of these eagle claws also exceeded the normal range.

This eagle had likely consumed some kind of Metal-element spirit mineral, which was why the Metal-element Yao power on its claws had such strength.

He could not afford to drag this out.

The Spiritual Qi in his Dantian was being consumed rapidly while continuously controlling the Flying Sword, while the Azure Cloud Eagle expended almost no energy circling in the air.

If he dragged it out too long, he would be the one at a disadvantage.

He fished out a heavenly thunder bead from his Storage Pouch.

The round bead lay in his palm, dark purple all over, with the lightning particles sealed inside jumping slowly; he could feel a faint tingling sensation through the bead's surface.

The heavenly thunder bead was a consumable item; each one used was one less. But now was not the time to be precious about his trump cards.

He gripped the heavenly thunder bead, waiting for the Azure Cloud Eagle to enter his attack range.

The Azure Cloud Eagle was still wrestling with the Flying Sword in the air.

Its claws were locked tightly onto the sword body, and with its wings fully spread, it flapped them violently, each flap whipping up a gale.

It clearly did not intend to let go of this sword—in its understanding, a human Cultivator without a Magical Artifact was like a tiger without teeth.

This understanding was correct. But it did not know that Jiang Yan had more than one Flying Sword.